Intergenerational Contact between In-laws: focusing on the Roh Sang-chu Family and the Haeju Chung Family

This study is based on the diaries of Roh Sang-chu (1746-1829), a military officer in the late Joseon Dynasty, and shows the intergenerational contact between Gyeongju Roh and Haeju Jeong in the 18th century. In addition to the common history of being a military department for generations, the two families had been connected since their ancestors through academic and regional ties, and through the marriage of descendants of the two families, relations between in-laws were established and maintained. The three main factors of the two families contact are as follows in terms of academic ties, social relation capital, emotional empathy and ritual mutual aid. First, the two families lived in the Seonsan area of Gyeongsangbuk-do and responded together to local issues, including the restoration of ancestral tribute and the reconstruction of Seowon, based on their academic ties with the Yeongnam Sarim faction. Second, Noh Sang-chu was able to obtain information about examinations and government life from his Haeju Jeong in-laws, who were former and current military officials, and the social relation capital he built up with the Chungs provided him with additional motivation and guidance to become military life. Third, there was an emotional consensus among the members of the two families to share their leisure and cultural activities. Fourth, Roh and Chung's in-laws attended each other's mourning ceremonies, consoled each other, and helped with various Confucian wedding and funeral rites to complete the ritual. By analysing the intergenerational contact between the Roh and Jeong families in the 18th century, this study highlights the importance of the study of in-laws, which has been neglected in the academic field, and shows that in-laws in the Yangban families of the Chosun Dynasty were very close emotionally and mentally.